Hi all,

Apologies if this has been posted before, however, I’m interested to know the rationale behind Qantas’ LHR crew base?

Many thanks.

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

Their base salary for cabin crew in the UK is also lower than in Australia, so QF can save there too. This is also why they have bases in New Zealand.

United has a Flight Attendant base there as well.

Believe the Non-stop LHR-PER was crewed just by LON based cabin crew. Guess the same is now for the DRW flight.
The internals obviously being crewed by Local Aussies .

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

dcajet wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

TUGMASTER wrote:

Believe the Non-stop LHR-PER was crewed just by LON based cabin crew. Guess the same is now for the DRW flight.
The internals obviously being crewed by Local Aussies .

Sometimes the LHR would also operate LHR-SIN or even all the way to MEL/SYD on the 380s. But they would mix with Aussie based crew too so wasn’t an entire aircraft of LHR crew. Now the base is flying again, not sure they will be retrained on the 380s?

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

I do vaguely recall they did have to adjust the layover or something as the LHR crew only doing LHR-PER-LHR and such longhaul sectors with such a time chang a was causing fatigue issues… but can’t recall details.

Amazing to think back to the old days of worldwide basings! Always a fan of such cross cultural service. QF used to have bases in AKL, BKK, NRT

airlinepeanuts wrote:

dcajet wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As. And yes, United has a London base, but it should be said that UA grandfathered that base when it acquired the London routes from Pan Am back in 1991. I doubt very much that UA would have opened it on their own. Further to my point, UA has closed all its Asia bases recently (HKG, NRT & SIN). In a context where they were letting go US based F/As it is very hard to justify these foreign nationals' bases. After all, both AA and UA are US based corporations and their first priority should be to employ Americans first, whenever practical or feasible.

smi0006 wrote:

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

Why not LHR-PER-FCO/CDG/Other europe-PER-LHR?

skipness1E wrote:

What % of LHR flying is on London based crews with United?

W/O getting into specifics and from before COVID hit, London crews were doing one of the IAD, ORD & SFO flights per day. Those are the routes I used to fly as a pax before COVID. Not sure about EWR or IAH. The London crews are a lovely bunch; many of them are ex-PA; with tons of experience - they've seen it all - and thus provide tip top service on board. Same goes for the LHR UA staff, in particular the concierges, they know how to deal with Global Services members.

qf2220 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

Why not LHR-PER-FCO/CDG/Other europe-PER-LHR?

Yeah for sure - I was just trying to think like QF and reduce the hotel costs in FCO for a 72hr layover between the return sector. Tough on body clock too going up and back to Europe from PER like that between Perth with no home rest.

It's worth noting CX also has a sizeable crew base at LHR. But going back to QF. The main reason is overall cost of having a LHR base CC operate their flights is cheaper than using Aussie Crews. It's a nice base of Crew, a lot of them have worked for various other airlines and love the QF rosters as they don't do that many trips per month. So many of them don't live locally to London and commute for to LHR for work.

AAMDanny wrote:

It's worth noting CX also has a sizeable crew base at LHR.

Closed recently

eta unknown wrote:

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

Also NZ did it to save on crewing costs AKL Based Long-haul crew typically got 2-3 nights in LAX in an hotel been flights. LHR crew only overnighted in LAX, and returned to LHR the next day.

jetskipper wrote:

United has a Flight Attendant base there as well.

They do, and it was inherited from the PA days, I believe, but then UA has a pretty sizable operation at LHR.

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

dcajet wrote:

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As. And yes, United has a London base, but it should be said that UA grandfathered that base when it acquired the London routes from Pan Am back in 1991. I doubt very much that UA would have opened it on their own. Further to my point, UA has closed all its Asia bases recently (HKG, NRT & SIN). In a context where they were letting go US based F/As it is very hard to justify these foreign nationals' bases. After all, both AA and UA are US based corporations and their first priority should be to employ Americans first, whenever practical or feasible.

AA has a crew base in EZE as well, and I think still do in BOG and SCL. I believe the rules prevent those crews from working US domestic flights.

skipness1E wrote:

Didn't they also have LHR based pilots too?

No longer

ContinentalEWR wrote:

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As. And yes, United has a London base, but it should be said that UA grandfathered that base when it acquired the London routes from Pan Am back in 1991. I doubt very much that UA would have opened it on their own. Further to my point, UA has closed all its Asia bases recently (HKG, NRT & SIN). In a context where they were letting go US based F/As it is very hard to justify these foreign nationals' bases. After all, both AA and UA are US based corporations and their first priority should be to employ Americans first, whenever practical or feasible.

AA has a crew base in EZE as well, and I think still do in BOG and SCL. I believe the rules prevent those crews from working US domestic flights.

And they can only operate flights to MIA (no JFK, DFW or LAX). That is how they are "fenced in"; US domestic sectors are also out of the question. EZE is the largest base, and there is one in LIM as well, in addition to BOG and SCL, all legacies from the Braniff International days, first grandfathered by Eastern and then AA. The EZE ones, they operate one of the daily MIA-EZE-MIA rotations and once in MIA they usually operate some of the shorter rotations to Central and South America and the Caribbean before heading back down to EZE.

dcajet wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

The UA LHR base is staffed by AFA represented FAs.

LGWFAN wrote:

Hi all,

Apologies if this has been posted before, however, I’m interested to know the rationale behind Qantas’ LHR crew base?

Many thanks.

Overall reason it would be to reduce operating costs and to provide some better flexibility if there is a technical issue or weather delay.

If the flights were only crewed out of Australia they would need to physically employ more crew. The Australian based crew would have additional down route rest requirements.

Crewing them out of Australia and the U.K. each sector effectively only needs an overnight down route. Crews can be scheduled for more flights a month.

Allowances and hotel rooms do come into play but not as much as the actual employment costs like salary, benefits, and training (initial and recurrent).

Ionosphere wrote:

dcajet wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

The UA LHR base is staffed by AFA represented FAs.

Correct, a LHR based flight attendant could
base trade to CLE or GUM for instance and anyone from a UA domestic base could bid LHR.

Ionosphere wrote:

dcajet wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Conversely AA with upto 22 daily flights ( pre pandemic) always use a hotel.

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

The UA LHR base is staffed by AFA represented FAs.

I seem to remember that some of UA Asia bases were not represented by AFA (Singapore IIRC) and thus wore slightly different uniforms per mgmt agreement with AFA.

AA Latin bases are represented locally. They are not employed locally.

jetskipper wrote:

Ionosphere wrote:

dcajet wrote:

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

The UA LHR base is staffed by AFA represented FAs.

Correct, a LHR based flight attendant could
base trade to CLE or GUM for instance and anyone from a UA domestic base could bid LHR.

Provided they already have local employment authorization, i.e. the right to work in the US or the UK, right? I remember when UA closed the NRT and HKG bases, those who held a US passport or a green card could transfer to any US base. Otherwise they were out of luck as UA would not sponsor them for employment in the US.

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

dcajet wrote:

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

Maybe not out right stop it but reduced frequencies and fewer routes are very much a reality. AA has stopped some routes to LHR in the past in lieu of BA. There are also some city pairs with a larger BA presence than a AA presence, and in some instances no AA presence at all. Part of the reason is because it's cheaper for BA to operate the route and part of the reason why it's cheaper it's because AA doesn't have a base at LHR. The idea that the Union wants to protect American jobs is out right misleading in this day and age. The Union's number one priority is to collect union dues to maintain its political clout. Preserving jobs is just the means to that end.

airbazar wrote:

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

Maybe not out right stop it but reduced frequencies and fewer routes are very much a reality. AA has stopped some routes to LHR in the past in lieu of BA. There are also some city pairs with a larger BA presence than a AA presence, and in some instances no AA presence at all. Part of the reason is because it's cheaper for BA to operate the route and part of the reason why it's cheaper it's because AA doesn't have a base at LHR. The idea that the Union wants to protect American jobs is out right misleading in this day and age. The Union's number one priority is to collect union dues to maintain its political clout. Preserving jobs is just the means to that end.

London and NY are must flies. LA and Paris are just below.

No airline is stopping any flying based on hotel logistics or base logistics

zeke wrote:

Crewing them out of Australia and the U.K. each sector effectively only needs an overnight down route. Crews can be scheduled for more flights a month.

More flights per month with a crew group which only operates ultra-long haul flights like the QF LHR crews isn't exactly possible. Assuming max 100hrs per month (in 28days) is rostered to anyone... I don't think QF crews can fly more than 2 Perths per month. LHR-PER-LHR 2 times leaves you very close to 90 flying hours. Not much they can fly.

John Nance's book about Braniff's decline, Splash of Colors, says when Braniff tried to sell their South American routes to PA, PA did not want to assume Braniff's bases in South America. Nance goes on to say that many of the Braniff flight attendants based in South American were the daughters of influential government employees and business executives in the countries where they were based, and the countries served by Braniff voiced opposition to Pan Am taking over the routes partly because these women would lose their jobs.

Eastern agreed to assume Braniff's South American bases, which made the South American countries served by Braniff more agreeable to an Eastern takeover of Braniff's routes.

Did any of the Lon based crews for asian airlines operate some domestic flights before returning to Lon (or an international sector in the case of Cathy) ?

eta unknown wrote:

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

BA has a few India crew bases, they have to hotel those crews in Lon..... so how does your logic work here compared to cheaper hotels in India UK based crews?

a350lover wrote:

More flights per month with a crew group which only operates ultra-long haul flights like the QF LHR crews isn't exactly possible. Assuming max 100hrs per month (in 28days) is rostered to anyone... I don't think QF crews can fly more than 2 Perths per month. LHR-PER-LHR 2 times leaves you very close to 90 flying hours. Not much they can fly.

What I had in mind were the one stops via sin, Australian based crews could do more sin turns

flyjay123 wrote:

eta unknown wrote:

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

BA has a few India crew bases, they have to hotel those crews in Lon..... so how does your logic work here compared to cheaper hotels in India UK based crews?

The number of Indian crew compared to the total number employed is small. Also bear in mind BA has more bargaining power in the UK than foreign carriers.

airbazar wrote:

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

Maybe not out right stop it but reduced frequencies and fewer routes are very much a reality. AA has stopped some routes to LHR in the past in lieu of BA. There are also some city pairs with a larger BA presence than a AA presence, and in some instances no AA presence at all. Part of the reason is because it's cheaper for BA to operate the route and part of the reason why it's cheaper it's because AA doesn't have a base at LHR. The idea that the Union wants to protect American jobs is out right misleading in this day and age. The Union's number one priority is to collect union dues to maintain its political clout. Preserving jobs is just the means to that end.

Not sure what to say other than "tell me you dislike unions without telling me you dislike unions".

WA707atMSP wrote:

John Nance's book about Braniff's decline, Splash of Colors, says when Braniff tried to sell their South American routes to PA, PA did not want to assume Braniff's bases in South America. Nance goes on to say that many of the Braniff flight attendants based in South American were the daughters of influential government employees and business executives in the countries where they were based, and the countries served by Braniff voiced opposition to Pan Am taking over the routes partly because these women would lose their jobs.

Eastern agreed to assume Braniff's South American bases, which made the South American countries served by Braniff more agreeable to an Eastern takeover of Braniff's routes.

With all due respect, and as far as the EZE base goes, that could not be further away from reality. Just like in the US, local F/As come from all walks of life. There may be a few that come from a privileged background but most are middle class folks that happen to speak perfect English. Yes, true, a good deal of them are from British or Irish Argentinian extraction but that is it. No such thing as captains of industry or drunken generals calling Dallas to complain... Reality is that those bases cost AA a fraction of what it would cost if the US bases did those flights, hence the fences the US unions puts for those F/As. And that is a cost advantage AA has over Delta and United.

It is true that at the time (1982) Pan Am did not wish to take over those bases, which is ironic considering that in 1989 Pan Am opened a GIG base to cover the intra South American flights such as GIG-EZE and EZE-SCL. What Pan Am did for years (well into the late 60s) was to hire foreign nationals as F/As and sponsor them for US permanent residency. That was how the PA crews were so multicultural. Eventually, the US government stop considering Flight Attendants a labor category that could be sponsored for immigration and that was that.

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

dcajet wrote:

The union will not allow it. They already had to accept legacy bases (from the Braniff days) at BOG, EZE, LIM & SCL but they are fenced in: they can only operate flights to one US port of entry, Miami, and are not allowed to fly domestic sectors.

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As.

Not sure why APFA would care as long as they're APFA flight attendants, with the same seniority list / contract (like UA's AFA-represented flight attendants in LHR, and formerly HKG / NRT / FRA / CDG - not sure if I'm missing any).

jfklganyc wrote:

airbazar wrote:

dcajet wrote:

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

Maybe not out right stop it but reduced frequencies and fewer routes are very much a reality. AA has stopped some routes to LHR in the past in lieu of BA. There are also some city pairs with a larger BA presence than a AA presence, and in some instances no AA presence at all. Part of the reason is because it's cheaper for BA to operate the route and part of the reason why it's cheaper it's because AA doesn't have a base at LHR. The idea that the Union wants to protect American jobs is out right misleading in this day and age. The Union's number one priority is to collect union dues to maintain its political clout. Preserving jobs is just the means to that end.

London and NY are must flies. LA and Paris are just below.

No airline is stopping any flying based on hotel logistics or base logistics

It's not hotel or base logistics. It's cost and efficiency, as Zeke pointed out above.
AA has the benefit of having a LHR based partner that can operate flight in lieu of AA. UA for example, does not.
If it's cheaper or more effective for BA to operate the flight instead of AA, then BA will operate the flight.

dcajet wrote:

Not sure what to say other than "tell me you dislike unions without telling me you dislike unions".

I don't like Unions but this has nothing to do with liking Unions. BA also has Unions and yet they operate flights in the JV instead of AA but you don't see the reverse happen. If there was an FA base in London maybe LHR-AUS would be operated by AA? How is a flight operated by BA better for AA's Unions?

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Not sure about JL, but NH still have a LHR base.

Slightly off topic but SAS out of LHR seem to employ UK crew and also pilots. Does anyone know exactly how that works`?

skipness1E wrote:

qantas330 wrote:

Slightly off topic but SAS out of LHR seem to employ UK crew and also pilots. Does anyone know exactly how that works`?

It's called SAIL and it's a union busting, cost cutting arms length subsidiary which has a fleet of Irish registered NEOs under the "Spinnaker" callsign. It's just lower cost SAS using SAS aircraft in SAS livery employing non Scandinavian labour. It only got past the unions by a promise of they wouldn't be based flying out of Scandinavia, which I believe they now are.

Spot on…
Union busting *#&£

Lots of ex ZB drivers ended up there , still some left, but unsure if the numbers now.

zeke wrote:

a350lover wrote:

More flights per month with a crew group which only operates ultra-long haul flights like the QF LHR crews isn't exactly possible. Assuming max 100hrs per month (in 28days) is rostered to anyone... I don't think QF crews can fly more than 2 Perths per month. LHR-PER-LHR 2 times leaves you very close to 90 flying hours. Not much they can fly.

What I had in mind were the one stops via sin, Australian based crews could do more sin turns

I’ve anecdotal heard - so could be wrong UK based crews have a yearly/monthly cap on hours flown, not sure Aussie base crew do, they just have lots more generous layover and day off limits. So end of the year some crews were running out of hours to fly. I believe BA mixed fleet also had this issue at the start. U.K. crews were still cheaper just needed Aussie crew to sub in at the end if delays and OT had built up.

FURUREFA wrote:

dcajet wrote:

airlinepeanuts wrote:

I don’t get why the union won’t allow it, isn’t the alternative (potentially) no London flying at all?

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As.

Not sure why APFA would care as long as they're APFA flight attendants, with the same seniority list / contract (like UA's AFA-represented flight attendants in LHR, and formerly HKG / NRT / FRA / CDG - not sure if I'm missing any).

In the case of American's foreign nationals' bases, those F/As are NOT APFA members. They are represented locally and have different contracts and seniority lists, although they are licensed by the FAA as they operate on American planes. In the case of Argentina, the labor contract is between the union and American Airlines Sucursal Argentina, as you can see on this link. Their latest contract is from 2018.

http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar/infoleg ... /norma.htm

airbazar wrote:

How is a flight operated by BA better for AA's Unions?

It isn't. That was precisely my point.

skipness1E wrote:

qantas330 wrote:

Slightly off topic but SAS out of LHR seem to employ UK crew and also pilots. Does anyone know exactly how that works`?

It's called SAIL and it's a union busting, cost cutting arms length subsidiary which has a fleet of Irish registered NEOs under the "Spinnaker" callsign. It's just lower cost SAS using SAS aircraft in SAS livery employing non Scandinavian labour. It only got past the unions by a promise of they wouldn't be based flying out of Scandinavia, which I believe they now are.

It’s now SAS Connect and operates from Scandinavia.

I’ve always found the SAS Connect crew very good. When I was commuting LHR-ARN they were always much more attentive and entertaining than the traditional SAS crew (most of whom come across as they would rather be anywhere else than doing their job).

dcajet wrote:

FURUREFA wrote:

dcajet wrote:

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As.

Not sure why APFA would care as long as they're APFA flight attendants, with the same seniority list / contract (like UA's AFA-represented flight attendants in LHR, and formerly HKG / NRT / FRA / CDG - not sure if I'm missing any).

In the case of American's foreign nationals' bases, those F/As are NOT APFA members.

I'm well aware that is the case for current non-US bases, but if AA wanted to open bases in LHR or CDG, for instance, and they were APFA-represented, not sure why APFA would have an issue.

gabrielchew wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Think JL also has a LON base

Not sure about JL, but NH still have a LHR base.

JAL keeps overseas cabin crew bases in LHR, FRA, SIN, BKK, TPE, HKG and PVG.
NH have in LHR, BKK, PVG, TPE and ICN.

eta unknown wrote:

flyjay123 wrote:

eta unknown wrote:

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

BA has a few India crew bases, they have to hotel those crews in Lon..... so how does your logic work here compared to cheaper hotels in India UK based crews?

The number of Indian crew compared to the total number employed is small. Also bear in mind BA has more bargaining power in the UK than foreign carriers.

In this case it's not all about cost. BA have India based crew to better serve their India based customers. For the same reason they have Tokyo based crews and crews based in the Middle East. They are all routes to destinations with significant cultural difference and substantial amounts of local customers, demanding their differing needs being met.